Dancing Shiva to be returned during Abbott's India visit

The $5 million illegally trafficked dancing Shiva that ended up in the National Gallery of Australia will be handed back to Indian Prime Minister Narenda Modi as part of Prime Minister Tony Abbott's visit to India.

Mr Abbott will also return a stone sculpture of the Indian God Ardhanarishvara. The two sculptures were bought from disgraced New York based antiquities dealer Subhash Kapoor who is now on trial in Chennai.

The 900-year-old bronze Shiva as Nataraja, Lord of the Dance dates to the Chola dynasty and was stolen from a temple in Tamil Nadu, before being sold to the National Gallery in 2008.

The returning of the sculptures ends a long-running battle that had become an irritant in the Australia-India relationship, along with the former Rudd government's decision to abandon uranium sales to the sub contintent in 2007, which was then reversed by former prime minister Julia Gillard in 2011.